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Electoral Maps 5

Depending on whether Ralph Goodale decides if staying with a third-place party again after the next election is his best option, I would say that all 3 Saskatoon seats are in play, as are the other two Regina seats (besides Goodale's Wascana) as well as the northernmost riding, Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River (especially if Lawrence Joseph wants to repeat as candidate, after losing by 794 votes in 2011).

Agreed. The 2011 votes transposed to the new ridings are:

Saskatoon West: NDP by 2663 votes, 8.72%Regina—Lewvan: NDP by 609 votes, 1.59%Note that Saskatchewan NDP voters cast enough votes in 2011 to elect five MPs. The new boundaries give them two MPs, showing that less than half of the problem was the boundaries. The biggest villain is still winner-take-all.

I guess I'm missing something here... the provincial legislatures are legislating the federal riding boundaries? I'm surprised if the provinces are involved.

While Mike Harris was premier of Ontario, he passed a law that made the provincial ridings the same as the federal ones, and so they have been ever since. But once the federal ridings are changed, provincial legislation will have to be passed to again synchronize the provincial ridings. This change was made in the name of saving taxpayers money by having fewer politicians. I think it was quite wrong headed, but many disagree with my opinion.

Would the Liberals prefer an election with the old boundaries, or feel it'd be better to wait until the new ridings come into play?

At the moment, they are more worried about Hudak. So they don't like the new 15 ridings which, on the 2011 federal votes, go about 10 to the Conservatives, three Liberals, two NDP. They seem to be getting away with this: I have seen no mention of Hudak complaining that Wynne is short-changing the GTA suburbs which get seven of the 15.

Of course, the Liberals have never liked using the federal riding boundaries, which was Mike Harris' idea. The federal boundaries Commission is not supposed to be worried about school board boundaries, health unit districts and hospital catchment areas, and other such provincial matters, so the federal ridings are not suited to electing Ontario MPPs.

And of course no other province has so few MPPs per person. But the Ontario Liberals are in no position to say Ontario needs 149 MPPs (which it would be about to get, if Mike Harris hadn't shrunk the House in 1998) when their federal counterparts had been grandstanding against Harper adding 30 MPs. So they are stuck in neutral, waiting until (they have been hoping) they can regain their majority.

One more problem: Ontario's northern ridings today are still based on the 1991 census, because they were "grandfathered" by all-party agreement around 2004, giving the north one more MPP than MP. It's weird to contemplate doing that again, but no one has another solution either, without appointing a provincial boundaries commission and instructing them to keep the number of northern MPPs unchanged.